Our Work
The West County HEAL Collaborative has determined four different working sectors to focus our energy in an improve the environment of: workplace, schools, community, and healthcare.Workplace
We are working to implement healthy food policies at various workplaces in our target area, by ensuring there are healthy options in vending machines and creating workplaces that encourage employees to be active during the day by exercising or talking walks during breaks or lunchtime.
We aim to develop a coalition of small fresh food outlets to address shared vendor needs, such as bulk purchasing, marketing, small business management practices, and providing health information in multiple languages.
It's not just the inside of the workplace we hope to change but also the trip to work. We are working to create policy changes that provide healthier commuting options such as by walking, biking, or using mass transit.
Schools
Aside from merely educating and working to engage teachers in adopting healthy classroom food practices, we have a number of policy-change and standards goals we are looking to implement such as SB 12 and SB965 (the new state nutrition standards for food and beverages sold or served on school campuses) and increased physical activity standards for elementary and middle school students, both during school and at after-school programs.
Community
In probably the most over-arching of the four sectors, the community sector will create HEAL Zones - areas in the community that support healthy eating and active living with consistent messages and a conductive physical environment. To ensure this goal, the West County HEAL Collaborative will promote the stability and expansion of mercados (corner stores selling fresh produce that reflects neighborhood cultures), establish safe walking routes to encourage residents to be more physically active, encourage residents to take leadership roles in policy and advocacy activities to make their neighborhoods healthier, and help revise the local "General Plans," which are cities' blueprints for future development, to ensure that these urban environments include healthy food and opportunities for physical activity.
Healthcare
The healthcare sector will work largely to promote the use of breastfeeding in new mothers by encouraging all area healthcare providers to offer breastfeeding counseling and improving the continuity of breastfeeding messages and support services by establishing new hospital-clinic partnerships in order to increase breastfeeding information and services for African-American and Latino patients.
